Overprotective
by prouvaires
Summary: Another challenge response! Shane and Mitchie's daughter is missing, and everyone completely overreacts. One-shot. The 'worry' challenge.


**Okay, this is courtesy of a HUGE sugar rush at about midnight, so please forgive any mistakes! I'm not thinking quite straight.**

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know: I haven't seen her in ages. Calm down, baby, she's probably just hiding somewhere – you know how she is."

Shane paced the room worriedly.

"Are you sure? She's been missing for an hour now."

"Honey, it's been twenty minutes and you're actually starting to scare me now."

Mitchie was being annoyingly calm, sitting on a sofa and reading a magazine. Shane brushed a hand through his hair, messing it up further. She started to laugh at him, and he scowled hugely.

"ALAYNA!" He shouted _yet again_, trying to frighten his daughter into coming out of wherever she was hiding.

"Darling, please. Stop worrying!" Mitchie was getting fed up. Shane took the 'overprotective father act' to new, special extremes. Mitchie laughed, remembering the last time they had been playing hide and seek, and Alayna had climbed a tree. Shane had looked for her for half an hour and then called the police, convinced she'd been kidnapped. The police were all in the kitchen listening to Shane's account when Alayna wandered in, mad because he stopped looking for her, and it was the best hiding place she ever found.

"What are you laughing about?" Shane demanded crossly, and Mitchie chose that minute to leave the room and start planning dinner.

By suppertime, four hours later, Alayna still hadn't appeared, and even Mitchie was worried, despite the fact she suspected her daughter was round at Caitlyn and Nate's, playing with their two children. She picked up the phone and dialled Caitlyn. Nate picked up.

"Hello?" he said, and Mitchie smiled as she heard his son shouting in the background.

"Hey, it's Mitchie. You haven't seen Alayna, have you? We haven't seen her in about four hours now and I think Shane's having a nervous breakdown. He's ransacking the house."

Nate made a shushing noise and the child's yells in the background ceased.

"No, we haven't seen her. When did she go missing?" his tone was worried, and Mitchie caught her breath.

_No, no, please God no._

"She hasn't been around since about two this afternoon. Oh my God, do you think she's been taken?"

"Call the police. Tell Shane. I'll grab Caitlyn and the kids and we'll be round as soon as we can."

He hung up and Mitchie put the phone down, taking a deep, shaky breath. With Nate and Caitlyn on the next street over, someone usually knew where Alayna was. If they hadn't seen her, she could be anwhere.

"Shane?" Mitchie called, her voice breaking slightly despite her efforts to control it. Shane appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, his hair a mess and his expression slightly wild.

"Is she with Nate?" his voice was rough but a little relieved, at least until he caught sight of her expression. He crossed the room quickly and caught her up in his arms, wiping away her tears with his thumbs even as his own rose in his eyes.

"They haven't seen her, have they?" he was reaching for the phone as he spoke. He dialled the emergency services.

"Hello. What is your emergency?" the brisk female voice on the other end of the line sounded ready for anything.

"My daughter is missing," Shane said, clenching the phone in a tight fist.

"Right. Please give your name and address, and we'll send a police officer as soon as we can."

"I'm Shane Gray and - "

"Shane Gray?" the woman lost some of her briskness and her voice faltered. "The singer?"

"Yes." Shane's voice was tight, his expression grim. He didn't mind using his fame to get him things he especially wanted.

"Very well," the woman said, her air of business regained, "members of the police force will be with you as soon as they can be."

"Thank you," Shane said, his tone shaking a little. Then he hung up the phone and pulled Mitchie closer. He stroked her hair gently, her head on his chest as she began to cry.

"It'll be alright, darling. She'll be fine."

It was ironic that just five minutes after she was telling _him _to calm down, he was trying to comfort her. The doorbell rang, and Shane all but sprinted to the door. Nate stood there with his five-year old son, Michael, on his back, and Caitlyn was next to him with baby Rosie in her arms. They came in, offering advice and comfort, and as soon as Shane got the door closed the bell rang again. Shane opened it to find four uniformed police officers on his doorstep.

"Move along, you guys," he said, trying to push Nate and Caitlyn forward.

"Here, do you want to put Michael in front of a movie?" Mitchie asked, stopping in front of the sitting room.

"Yeah, thanks," Nate said, swinging his son onto the sofa and putting in a Disney DVD of Peter Pan. Michael settled down to watch, unaware of any disturbance. The adults moved through to the kitchen. Caitlyn handed Rosie over to Nate and then started to quietly make cups of tea as the policemen quizzed Mitchie and Shane.

"So, you last saw her at around two pm, is that right?"

"Yes," Mitchie replied, squeezing Shane's hand to remind him to try to be civil. "I made her lunch and then she got down from the table and ran outside to play. I haven't seen her since: I assumed she was playing hide-and-seek with Shane."

Shane nodded. "And I thought she went round to Nate and Caitlyn's. She goes through a hole in the hedge at the back of the garden."

One of the policemen started to get up. "Do you mind showing us this hole?"

Shane shrugged. "Sure, if you think that would - "

He was interrupted by Jason's voice.

"Uh, guys, did you lose something?"

He was holding a wildly giggling Alayna upside down by the ankle. She looked like she was having the time of her life, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Jason just looked nonplussed. Ella followed him in.

"Jase, I told you not to carry her like that! Sorry we're late, but Alayna _insisted _on helping Jason finish his birdhouse."

Everyone in the kitchen stared at the trio in absolute amazement, until Alayna started choking.

"Crap!" said Jason, pulling her higher to examine her. Shane leapt out of his chair and grabbed his daughter from Jason.

"You idiot!" he snapped, righting his daughter and banging her between the shoulder blades. She eventually recovered enough breath to start laughing again, and the sound was so infectious that the whole room found themselves laughing with her.

Mitchie shook her head, knowing that in five minutes Shane's relief would have calmed down, and then both Alayna and Jason would get it. She smiled to herself. Caitlyn caught the look and grinned too, both of them connected by the good-natured exasperation with the men in their life.

**What did you think? I didn't do a very good job with the worry, I know, but the end was fun to write. My sugar rush has faded somewhat now, so I might try and get some sleep. Leave me a review, tell me what you thought!**


End file.
